In The Service Of The Queen
by Days Like This
Summary: Remus/Ginny. He's always been a poet, deep down, and she's dragging the words out of him with red lipstick and searching eyes. Oh, she must be ruling the world.


Disclaimer: It's J.K. Rowling's. No one here is pretending other wise, darling.

Title comes from Counting Crow's song 'Rain King.' '_I belong in the service of the queen, I belong anywhere but in between…_ 'etc. I couldn't come up with anything better, honestly.

Author's Note: Didn't you just know Remus was a poet? Oh, didn't you just know? Ginny is his siren, and here she is an outstandingly grown-up 24 years old. Before everyone starts getting squicky on me. No, no, none of that here. (Remus is 47-ish in case you were wondering. I've decided.) Anyway, do enjoy.

Remus Lupin had always been a poet, deep inside. From the time he wrote horrible love poems to the blonde girl who sat next to him in potions to the days he spent breathing in dirty city loneliness on Piccadilly, the silly little nonsense words had always plagued him, hanging just behind his eyes.

So maybe that's what it was, when he saw her that night. Because on two shots of gin and tingling muscles, his poet was ready to go. She was a modern dreamer's dream, after all; pale in a shadowy doorway, with those full red lips and those searching eyes.  Those searching eyes that, for some unknown reason, found him. (He tried to stop from wanting those full red lips to find him, too.)

And when she spoke to him finally, he was sure he'd never be the same.

'May I call you Remus, now?' _Oh yes, please do. As long as you promise to make it always sound just like that…_

'It's been ages, hasn't it?' _Do you mean we've met before? Then it must have been lifetimes ago, because I would never forget you without death's help, and right now you're something I've never known before…_

'How have you been?' _I haven't been till now. And don't know you know?_

But that night ended with a smile and a nod - while the next was already blending into fire and dark and all those blasted words that nipped at his bones. He prepared to fear the one after that, but the day interrupted with her owl. Oh wouldn't he grace her with his company over an evening drink? Oh, wouldn't he.

It was the red lipstick kiss on the bottom that killed him.

Her dress was long and black and his gaze was held by the way it floated around her when they danced. (It was so much easier to watch than her face.) 

'Where did you learn to dance so well?' _It is funny the things you learn when you're abroad and on your own for the first time. Did you know that life tastes like wine and tears and drunken singing is the key to it all?_

'What did you always want to be when you grew up?' 

He lifted his head to look at her, and that look in those eyes (didn't they ever stop searching?) and for the first time, said it out loud. 'A writer,' he said, smiling a bit and feeling very sad. 'I suppose I just wanted to be a writer.'

'That's so very fitting.' She shifted in his arms to look up at him better. 'I always loved writers, but it's not a very good world for them, generally.'

'No,' he agreed quietly, his skin humming pleasantly. 'It really isn't, is it?'

She asked him to walk her home. 'It's only a few blocks. Please? It's dark and I feel safe with you, at this late hour.' She put her arm in his. 'You are the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, after all.' He walked with her but couldn't help but bite his lip. _But I don't think I've ever felt so unsafe as when I am with you.  I'm the unsafe one._

'I feel like I could conquer the world tonight,' she said happily as they walked, and he didn't say anything back in case she was talking to the night and not him. 'That's what I wanted to do, you know, when I grew up. Rule everyone in the world. And watch from way up high on a throne with a plastic crown and fake diamond rings.'

That's when he knew. And before he could stop himself, before he had noticed that he wasn't willing her to know his thoughts anymore, he said, 'If you let me be your world, I promise you can rule me.' 

He didn't mean to say it out loud, but once he had he imagined the words were written in the air, and she would look up to see them in big silver letters. And they were. And she did.

She stopped and faced him. 'This is my building,' she said with a grin, and he thought then that she really had been ruling the world all this time, because she was in control of everything when she pulled him up the steps with her to the third floor.

If he thought the fire had been unbearable in the night without her, it had been nothing compared to with her now.

'Tell me something else,' she whispered excitedly as she climbed faster and faster. 'Tell more- tell me what you've been thinking.'

'About you?'

'Oh yes. But hurry!' She looked up at the last flight to climb. 'We're almost there, and you have to tell me three things. Give me three reasons, Remus.'

'You're voice is like smoke and ash when you say my name and I love it.' She turned to look at him and continued to walk up the stairs backwards. She held up one finger.

'You have the most beautiful mouth I've ever seen and I desperately want to smear that red lipstick.' She was about to hold up another finger when they reached her hallway and she slowed as they came to her door. 

'That's only two,' she told him as she undid the locking charms. 'Give me one more.'

'I want to write poetry on your skin,' he whispered, wondering if perhaps nothing was real anymore, because he couldn't possibly have just said that out loud. 

She reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen (which is so much easier to carry around than those ridiculous quills) holding it up by her face.

'Promise?' she breathed, letting the door swing open.


End file.
